News Article: Write-up on Roy's System

[henchman21]

The biggest difference between Hunwick, SOB, and Zanon compared to Sarich, Benoit, and Guenin is that the latter all know their abilities and play within them. The former group didn't with SOB being by far the worst and Zanon the closest to playing within himself.

Basically instead of making 10+ stupid plays a game where players are trying to do too much, we now have 1 or 2 a game and this has cut down on the number of odd man rushes and defensemen out of position. Which has lead to far fewer good scoring chances for the opposing teams. Part of it is the system, part of it is getting the players to play within themselves and play a simple effective game.

 

[the_fan]

The biggest difference between Hunwick, SOB, and Zanon compared to Sarich, Benoit, and Guenin is that the latter all know their abilities and play within them. The former group didn't with SOB being by far the worst and Zanon the closest to playing within himself.

Basically instead of making 10+ stupid plays a game where players are trying to do too much, we now have 1 or 2 a game and this has cut down on the number of odd man rushes and defensemen out of position. Which has lead to far fewer good scoring chances for the opposing teams. Part of it is they system, part of it is getting the players to play within themselves and play a simple effective game.

While that is true, another part of it is the players actually knowing how to play within the system, not just getting them play within the system, because SOB and Hunwick would still try to be Bobby Orr out there because both this players didn't really know how to make safe plays, they both tried to carry the puck end to end and make plays and both miserably failed at that, and i don't think that would change even under Roy.

Not to mention they all sucked at one on one coverage in D zone. Out of those 3 Zanon could block shots and that's about it.

 

[Freudian]

Hejda said something to the effect that it's easier to play when you know that a forward is going to act like a third defenseman. You can pinch without it hurting the team, which helps Avs offense. O'Reilly, Landeskog, Duchene, Parenteau, Stastny, Tanguay backchecking like mad men helps plug whatever leaks there are because of plugs playing back there.

 

[Jayevs]

I love everything about Roy and his philosophy and his system, this was a ver good read, sometimes I would like to see lineup changes, I just think something's could click even better. I liked Parenteau with Duch and Radar at the end of the Winnipeg game. I feel Tanguay should be with MacKinnon. Sarich had a rough game against Winnipeg IMO, and I'd like to see Barrie with Hejda.

O'Reilly-Duchene-Parenteau
McGinn-Stastny-Landeskog
Tanguay-MacKinnon-Downie

Benoit-EJ
Hejda-Barrie

Maybe I'm way off and we'd be 1-10 with these lines, I trust Roy and think he's done an amazing job, this just makes more sense to me.

 

[Pokecheque]

It's generally not a good idea to have a big gap between your forwards and defense, and last season under Sacco's system you could've fit another entire rink between the fast forwards and the glacially-slow defensemen. I suppose in that sense, Sacco deserves some slack since it was also a personnel issue, even though he still managed to make some inexplicably bad decisions and put nearly every player in a position to fail.

Let's not forget that Sacco employed a fast-paced offensive system when he first started that had the defensemen jumping into the play and also had forwards dropping back in the defensive zone. It wasn't the exact same as Roy's but very similar. That was when we had defenders who could actually skate and move the puck. It wasn't until Sherman stockpiled a bunch of pylons on the blueline that Sacco employed a much more conservative system. Thankfully the new regime learned from the old one and immediately got some speed and puckmoving ability back on D.

Dont' get me wrong, Sacco did indeed deserve the axe, but the failure was far from his alone, and his system last year that Duchene recently slagged was more a reflection of the poor personnel he was handed rather than a conscious choice.

I do believe the collective team IQ has been raised though. Matt Hunwick, David Jones, and Shane O'Brien simply don't have great hockey sense. I can't imagine any of those guys succeeding under Roy, but then again I don't consider Steve Downie to be a genius on the ice either.